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Rework ideas for Kha'Zix + Changes for Rengar quest, Rito pls read?

Visigoth·11/6/2015, 2:16:58 AM·18 votes·1,723 views

Khazix, The Void Reaver. Once a terror in early Season 4 and pretty much any time before. Every since I started playing in Preseason 4, for about two years, he's always been my favorite champion and for the most part my main. The hardest hitting change to him easily was Season 4's complete destruction of him for a solid month, until he got 15 damage given to his Q, which is still laughable. On the bright side, he did eventually get isolation decreased by down to 425.

That being said, he still lost his 12% of missing hp damage on Q, and 50% damage reduction during invis on evo R. Both HUGE nerfs, although the damage reduction was pretty toxic.

Plus, tons of PBE changes are going to indirectly nerf him:

Death's Dance's changing 20% of damage into bleed. This means Kha'Zix will have even more struggle one shotting people, so now, squishies won't even worry about isolation. On the bright side, this very same item also gives heal from physical damage. Meaning his iso Q will heal for 12% damage deal. Pretty nice, plus 10% cdr.

Warrior changes. RIP armor pen and 10% cdr.

Last Whisper also only gives penetration of BONUS armor, so combined with Warrior changes, Kha'Zix will have no optimal items to build for raw armor pen, and that is an issue.

General changes to buff adcs to make them survive really hurt him, meanwhile, Rengar, his lore and in-game enemy, still can kill people instantly. So much for that quest.

And some issues still haven't been addressed. Namely:

His ultimate is practically non-existent, especially when the enemy has a pink ward or upgraded sweeper, which they always have in higher levels of play, especially versus a Kha'Zix. All, his ultimate is laughably bad even when evolved. His evolved R is worse than any other of his abilities even when not evolved, including his passive.

And his W. Evolved, it pretty much gives a slow and more area. More shots doesn't do much for a single target assassin. And the vision it gives on champions only is kinda pointless. If it hits where you couldn't already see, it pretty much can only be a champion, or maybe a jungle creep, but you should know where they are.

So how could we fix this?

Passive, Unseen Threat: Stays the same. The only 100% consistent ability, let's not mess with it, especially when it is neither OP nor UP

Q, Taste Their Fear: Give the execute back, or give another isolation decrease when evolved, so he can get some more damage to combat the fact that adcs, an assassin's primary target, are going to be much stronger and have an easier time surviving.

W, Void Spike: The biggest issue is the fact that this ability doesn't get much stronger when evolved. What I'd like to see is maybe some sort of a marking system instead of more slow and triple shot. Thematically, his W is supposed to be him marking his prey to chase and consume them, hence the slow. So why not capitalize on that, and instead of giving more slow (when he already has passive and a big jump) and AoE, it would instead apply a debuff to any enemy champions it hit. This debuff would give vision, so Kha'Zix can track them down, guarantee isolation (he's marked them, so now they would be scared he's coming for 'em, so he can "Taste Their Fear"), and make the next Q also do bonus damage. The debuff could be consumed by Kha'Zix once he Q's them, so he would only get extra damage once, and only have guaranteed isolation for that one beefy Q. This gives some interaction between abilities; this wouldn't be useful unless you had evolved Q for damage.

E, Leap: No changes at all. Nothing wrong with it. Gets the job done and has a great evolution.

R, Void Assault: Assault... Assault... That word is being used on you least offensive ability. That aside, his R is still hilariously bad. I get it--you get an evolution. But his R is pretty much useless, even when evolved. Like previously stated, you'd have to be a moron for nobody to have a pink ward or upgraded sweeper. What if his evolution gave him stealth that couldn't be detected. True Stealth? Sure, why not. In the past his evolved ultimate had 50% damage reduction. That shit was OP. To keep in the spirit of it being his trump card to escape death, it could now when evolved give stealth that was immune from all detection, bar the fountain tower, because fountain diving is never fun to be against. This change alone would make Kha'Zix easily 100% viable again. Never again would need to worry about Lee Sin screwing you with E, or someone dropping a pink ward from upgraded trinket or getting swept by their support or jungler. And let's be honest, not being seen isn't going to be ground breaking. You still wouldn't be able to kill someone in the middle of their team or under a tower.

Lastly, something I would absolutely love to see. A fourth evolution, all the time. Rengar can get a 20 stack trinket instead of the head of Kha'Zix, but Kha'Zix can never get a 4th evolution without Rengar. And Rengar is much stronger than Kha'Zix and without teamwork is way more likely to kill him. But this wouldn't be unconditional. First, he has to be level 18, max level. Then, he would have get X amount of kills, whether that be overall (i.e. 10 kills throughout the game), or a certain amount once 18 (i.e. 5 kills after 18). Assists would not count. You gotta Eat and Adapt, not hit once and adapt.

Ah yes, the dream, Perfect Evolution Kha'Zix. That's how you truly evolve and adapt. This would cement his place as an assassin who is supposed to evolve as the game progress. And it's not like he just gets it for free, 5 kills after level 18 isn't exactly easy.

To offset this, Thrill of the Hunt, the quest of Rengar vs Kha'Zix, would get changed. Rengar still has his bonus jump for squashing the bug, but now maybe a little bit more Q damage. Thematically, he essentially replaces his knife with one of Kha'Zix's claws. Would also be amazing if his model was also changes so his knife was his claw, just so you can kill the enemy with their jungler. Kha'Zix now would get more damage on isolated targets. Thematically, he's established himself as the ultimate predator. With this title, he's also taken Rengar's other eye. Obviously not literally; what would he do with a third eye? Upon consuming Rengar, he has gained the Pridestalker's inept eye for finding his target's weak point.

Wordy ass post, I know. But we're talking huge changes. This would finally establish Kha'Zix as being a high single-target damage assassin who's ultimate serves as his backup plan for escape. Hopefully it wouldn't prove to be too op, but Riot hasn't exactly shown to be conservative when nerfing him, so we have that backup plan.

Would love if Riot could at least comment on if they have changes for Kha'Zix, even if it's just something small, I would love for him to finally be decent again and have more than 2 evolutions.

12 Comments

blkKalameet11/6/2015, 2:36:22 AM4 votes

Main things I would want to see changed is 1 isolation. At a certain point in the game minions should no longer block isolation. Say around lvl 11-16. And eventually the radius should become smaller.

  1. W does need more utility. And honestly granting vision/ isolation stack for q is a good thought for it.

  2. R. His ult need a bit of love. Maybe let attacking out of stealth prock taste there fear, As being attacked by I giant invisible bug is rather terrifying.

  3. Q. This ability will need the executive damage with deaths dance coming out. Otherwise it's just that much harder to be an assassin.

With all the item changes its almost looking good to build essence reaver/IE/deaths dance. This would give him damage, cdr, sustain, and the crit wont go wasted as you will be auto attacking to use your passive while your Q is on cool down. Just theory crafting that item set mind you, haven't gotten to test any of it.

Smitty Manjensen11/6/2015, 11:33:42 AM2 votes

Why are people acting like Kha'zix is shit? He is actually a pretty good champion, you just need a little bit of a brain to use him effectively. Seriously with these constant threads for buffs you're just gonna make him another Veigar or Elise. If you want buffs how about you write something which should be toned down on him?

Gixia11/6/2015, 4:15:59 PM2 votes

I believe there are a few things you're not accounting for that work to his benefit in the new season.

You mention how Death's Dance on an adc makes it harder for him to burst the adc down, and though you mention that Death's Dance does give Kha'Zix lifesteal, it still gives him that exact same resistance to being bursted down. Kha'Zix is a super squishy bug man. Getting exploded is pretty much his biggest weakness too. Yes, the adc will live longer, but Kha'Zix himself ALSO lives longer, so it should break even.

Yes, Kha's ult loses to pink wards, but it no longer loses to sweeper, because sweeper doesn't grant true-sight anymore. And since ward trinkets can't be upgraded into pinks now, buying pink wards is the ONLY option. And since you can only hold one pink in your inventory at a time, a pink being held for Kha's ult is a pink that's not being set up on the map itself for vision control. It's also one less item slot the enemy has to work with.

Last Whisper now only works on bonus armor pen, yes, but it can be upgraded into Lord Dominik's Regards, which will give 15% extra damage done to anyone tankier than you, so if for some awful reason you really need to focus a tank, you're still going to be able to do it. Sure, Last Whisper and warrior enchant are now worse for killing squishies, but Black Cleaver and Maw of Malmortius are both better now. Black Cleaver has increased AD, and Maw gained flat armor pen. On top of that, Youmuu's lost the useless crit in exchange for getting a much larger chunk of AD, meaning Youmuu's is now a genuine option to consider as well that also has flat pen and CDR. Armor pen % mastery also got buffed to 7% from 6, or you can go into the cunning tree where there's a new flat pen mastery instead.

Trinity Force MIGHT also be something worth getting now, as Sheen trades out unhelpful AP for CDR. That said, Trinity Force as a whole got nerfed statwise and gained more crit, so maybe not. Will require testing.

Frankly, I think the doom and gloom predictions about assassins and Kha'Zix in particular are overblown. I'm very much looking forward to playing him in the pre-season, especially with Death's Dance. Seriously, that thing is gonna be his new favourite toy. I'm just sad that it looks like I'm gonna hit 40% CDR before I've even bought all the CDR items that I want.

Dragonlord713711/6/2015, 2:48:59 AM1 votes

Perhaps since his jump resets upon kill (after evo) the ultimate could be reworked to a more offensive use like a item 3057ish effect for the first attack out of stealth. The only reason I am suggesting this is because the ult itself is called void assault so it fits thematically and he doesn't really need another escape.

junglerboy1611/6/2015, 6:42:17 PM1 votes

Warrior still has CDR, only the -10 arpen will hurt.

It also gives 15 more AD, so landing an isolated evolved Q will do an extra 40.5 raw damage.

Darkwind11/6/2015, 5:17:10 PM1 votes

The W idea is good. I'd make it work like this:

Evolved W: Marks all enemies hit as Isolated for the next 3 seconds. Reveals hit enemies for 3 seconds. Single projectile only.

Evolved R: First auto attack after stealth deal 1.5x normal passive damage.

Now landing evolved W lets you get full Q damage even in the middle of enemies, evolved R increases your passive damage. R gives not only an addition passive proc when evolved (1x passive bonus), but .5 more damage per proc (total of 2.5x passive damage bonus). You evolve R for being more slippery, weaving in and out of fights and dealing more damage, or for 1v1s. You evolve W for assassinations in team fights. E and Q will still pretty much be no brainers, but his overall state will be significantly buffed, and at least there will be some decisions to make.

Shroom Junkie11/6/2015, 2:59:12 AM1 votes

Kha'zix kinda-main approves

http://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/chuck-norris-thumbs-up-dodgeball-gif.gif